


The Wanderer

by furrylittlebantha



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22646125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furrylittlebantha/pseuds/furrylittlebantha
Summary: Luke decides to disappear after Bespin.Eventually, he must face the truth:He can evade the Empire, but he can't outrun himself.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 13
Kudos: 88





	The Wanderer

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted several years ago on another site; consolidating here for archival purposes.

“But—where will you go?”

He shook the slender hand off his arm impatiently. “I don’t _know_ , Leia.”

Her face tightened, ugly lines settling into the skin around her mouth. “Another question you ‘can’t’ answer?”

“No,” he said, slinging the satchel onto his shoulder. It was light. He hadn’t known just how little he owned until today. “This one’s got me, too.”

“ _Stupid_.” Princess Leia hissed the word and turned away, hands balling into fists. He watched them wistfully, admired the supple flow of muscle, the outline of tendon, taut skin. Faint blue veins. Alive.

“So that’s it, then.” It was Calrissian who spoke, a kind of detached disappointment in his dark eyes. “You’re just—leaving.”

“That’s right,” Luke said steadily. He glanced over his shoulder and hailed a speeder taxi. The cabbie either ignored him or didn’t see him, because it passed by without stopping. He sighed.

“What about Han?” Leia asked, voice sharp, almost shrill with accusation. “How can you desert him? How can you do this to all of us? Forget the Rebellion. _We_ need you, Luke. How can you…leave us?” The last was soft and tearful. Pleading.

“Oh, Leia.” Luke looked at her, tried to say with his eyes what he could never tell in words. “Leia. Do you think I _want…_ that I wanted any of this? Forget the Rebellion? I believe in it more than ever, now.” He was unsuccessful in keeping his tone even, and he saw her face soften slightly, glance knowingly at his artificial hand. _No!_ he wanted to scream. _That’s not it, you’re missing the point…_

But she could never know the point.

“Believe me,” he went on, stepping closer, “I only want the Alliance to succeed. More than that, I want you and Han to…I don’t know. Be safe and happy, I guess.”

“Oh, and the best way to accomplish that is by deserting?” she snapped.

“No,” he said softly. “By disappearing. It’s the only way, actually.”

Something in her face shifted, but it remained open, didn’t harden. Luke was startled to see her chin tremble slightly.

“I…” He changed his mind. “Han loves you, you know.”

“Yes.” And her eyes brimmed over then, and the self-righteous arch to her back crumbled. “I know.”

On an impulse, he stepped even closer and smoothed her hair with one hand, patting her back awkwardly.

“Don’t cry, Leia,” he soothed. “It’ll be okay…”

The vision took him by surprise.

“Luke…?” She stiffened under him, sounded suddenly wary. Afraid.

After a long moment, he blinked and looked down at her, the first real smile he’d felt in a long time cracking across his face. “Yes. Everything will be okay.”

“So sure?” A small, answering smile met him, though with none of the joy. He hugged her lightly.

“Positive.”

A polite cough drifted down from the ramp of the _Falcon._ Calrissian was right; time was running out. Luke leaned in and brushed a gentle kiss over Leia’s forehead.

“Luke,” she whispered. “You don’t have to do this.”

He remembered the vision, and then another one, a vision he’d seen in a cave…

“Maybe,” he conceded. “But it’s not worth the risk.”

He saw the confusion in her eyes, the hurt. Someday she’d understand. Someday the pain would fade.

Someday might never come if he stayed with her.

He did not watch when the _Millennium Falcon_ roared into the night. He kept his eyes firmly ahead, staring unseeingly into the blinking lights of this anonymous world.

Anonymous. That’s what he needed to be, until the vision came true, and everything turned out all right.

Until the day Darth Vader died.

He never stayed in one place long.

“Luke…Got a last name, Luke?”

“No.” He smiled back disarmingly. “But I bet I’m stronger than anyone you’ve got out there.”

The burly dock manager looked him over, clearly skeptical. “Willing to bet on that?”

“Sure. I haul more crates in a certain amount of time than your best man, and you hire me. I lose, and I won’t bother you anymore.”

A grunt answered him. “Fair enough. Saul! Saul, c’mere.”

Saul towered over Luke, sweat trickling a hulking, sinewy chest. The manager grinned.

Luke won.

He stopped grinning then and offered Luke a job.

It was time to get a haircut. Shorter, definitely.

The girl trimmed it at her own pace, and she hummed while she worked. He restrained the urge to tap his fingers on the table.

“There—all done!” she announced at last, brightly. He all but shot out of the chair. She laid a hand on his arm, held out a mirror. “Take a look?”

“Um. No thanks.”

“But…why?” Her face fell. He pushed a few coins under her hand, smiled wanly.

“I don’t like mirrors, is all.”

He opened his eyes to find the bartender standing over him.

“Go home, kid,” the alien said gruffly, offering a clawed hand. Luke stared up with groggy fascination and did not move.

“Is that real?” he inquired politely. “Mine’s not. Here, look. All mechanical.”

The bartender settled his bulk into a stool, ignoring the creak of protest

“Ain’t you got somewhere to go? Someone waiting up? A wife? Kids?”

Oddly, the ceiling kept bearing down on him, shifting, tracing prolate curves around his vision. He closed his eyes.

“No home.” It was strangely difficult to make the words come out right. “Home’s where your family is, except in my case.”

“Uh-huh.” Brief, but eloquent. Luke hastened to contradict him.

“I’m not actually crazy,” he slurred. “Bad genes, is all. Just between you and me, Darth Vader’s my father.” A small hiccup escaped him. “Father, that is.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, no, you don’t get it. It’s why I’m adrift. Can’t find someone if they’re nowhere in particular.”

“I think it’s time for you to leave, home or no. Come on now, up-si-daisy.”

He had a vague sensation of rising, strong arms under his armpits, flickering lights.

“Watch your head,” he advised in a moment when his tongue was working. “Ceiling here has a nasty disposition.”

“Where are you going, mister?” The little girl skipped beside him, long braids flying behind her.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“Quaya!” A dark, thin woman swept up beside them and grabbed the girl’s hand, glaring fiercely at Luke. “Quaya, how many times have I told you not to speak to stra…”

A flicker of recognition passed over her face, washing away the anger.

“You’re the one. The one they’re looking for.”

He felt his heart stop.

Her hand came up, covered her mouth. They stood like that for a frozen moment, staring at each other while the little girl with the long braids wiggled impatiently.

“You’re Luke Sky—” she broke out at last.

“Don’t say it,” he implored, and her black eyebrows needled together, and her lips pursed.

“Go.” Her voice was low. “Go. Quickly.”

He did.

_You’re the one…_

_It’s him…_

_Look…_

_Stop!_

_Hey, look over there, isn’t he…_

_You’re the one they’re looking for…_

When it started happening more frequently, he altered his appearance and only went out at night.

There were fine moments along with the hard ones. Times when he slept on park benches and woke to lavish sunrise stroking his face. Times when he shared a bit of pastry with a beggar and received a genuine smile in return, when he felt that he might be a human being after all. Times when he watched families in parks and remembered, and fantasized. Times when ate his fill of good food. Times when he hiked up mountains on nameless worlds, reached the bare peak, flung his arms out and was all alone under a pale golden moon. Moments like there are in every life, that make life worth living.

If his came more sparsely than he wished, well, that was life, too.

The end to his wandering came of his own choosing—in a way.

It was a stormy world, beleaguered by hurricanes for centuries. There were safeguards. There were shields, and dams, and strict building codes. But the big one came, and it wasn’t enough. Luke was in the middle of town when it struck. He barely made it to a doorstep before the torrent slashed down; barely made it inside before a billboard slammed into the place he’d just been. Dripping, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

They flew open when a high scream ripped into his ears—stopped, started again, shriller. Reluctantly, Luke pulled his collar higher and stepped back into the chaos.

The boy was very small. He wore what looked like a uniform and clutched two books in chubby hands. Luke swung him into an abandoned warehouse and went looking for the rest. It wasn’t hard; they all had green uniforms and voluminous lung capacity, or else mental fear harsh enough to set his teeth on edge. Convincing them to move was another matter. Sometimes they were too petrified to do anything but stare at him, round-eyed, when he held out a hand and tried to yell above the wind. But one by one, he collected them, until at last he was sure there were none left.

He was just in time. From the cracked pane of a window, Luke watched as the school caved in and briefly burst into ochre flames. Chemicals must be feeding the fire, he thought vacantly. Whatever the case, it was a mesmerizing sight. For a moment longer he pondered the paradox, stared at the burning in the rain. 

A hand tugged at his sleeve.

“Sir?”

It was one of the older children, a girl. Luke made attempt to smile cheerfully.

“Everything okay?” he asked. Bewilderingly, her face crumpled, and she burst into tears.

“Oh, sir,” she wept. “What’s happening? Where’s Ms. Blanche?”

When he hugged her she only cried harder, and suddenly there was a crowd around his waist, holding out pleading arms, faces runny-nosed and tear streaked. He sat down and they piled on.

“ _Shhh…_ ” he murmured. “ _Shhh…_ ”

More people trickled in. After an hour, the warehouse was packed with huddled, dripping refugees. Luke paid them no mind, busy with his brood.

“Tell a story,” the girl demanded. He scratched his chin.

“Well…” and stopped short. With a pang, he realized all the tales he’d grown up with were gone, worn away by the years to vague images and warm feelings. “I…I only know one story, kids.” _And that one I can never tell._

But she started to cry again, fat, silent tears that splashed on the concrete and pooled around his knees. And the tears spread, from child to child, until he was staring helplessly into a sea of small, wet faces. Lonely faces. Frightened faces. Faces on the verge of hysteria, barely held together by his adult presence. Faces desperately in need of a story—anything to distract them from a horrific reality.

He thought about the bodies in the wreckage. He thought about the girl, standing over what must have once been her teacher.

He thought about the one he story he must never, never tell.

He told it anyways.

“Once upon a time, there was boy who lived in the desert with his uncle and aunt— _no, not a mommy and daddy--_ More than— _his mommy and daddy were dead, that’s why—_ More than anything— _yes…yes, both of them, now stop interrupting, please—_ More than anything, this boy loved to fly…” Haltingly, he began, cringing at the silence that spread out with his voice, noting with reluctance the quieting sniffles, and finally, warming to the tale that so captivated its audience. Because despite...everything, it _was_ a damn good story.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man murmuring into a commlink. He wavered in the telling, looked at the open door…

And smiled at the girl, and picked up where he left off.

“Obi-Wan deceived you. He used and manipulated you for his own ends, my son. It was all a lie.”

Luke gazed out through the viewport.

“I know, Father. I’ve known for a long time.”

Vader’s surprise was evident in the Force. “You have accepted your destiny, then.”

“No,” Luke mused. “To be honest, I no longer know what that word means.”

“Come, boy.” The Emperor spoke for the first time, half-rising from the throne. “You cannot expect us to believe that a Skywalker has rejected destiny.”

“I just think…” Luke sighed heavily, incapable of putting into words what had taken him eight years of wandering to discover. “I just think there’s more to it than words like fate and destiny, and even the Force. Things that seem right, that make perfect sense…sometimes _aren’t_. Two choices…they can both turn out all right sometimes, and sometimes not. Life is not driven by destiny. We all have a choice. And I do not choose the way of the Sith.”

As clearly as he had felt his father’s surprise, he felt the Emperor’s revulsion. A dark silence fell.

“You have grown wise,” Palpatine said at last, gravely. “Your years have ruined you.” The hooded head turned slightly toward the masked one. “Lord Vader. I have no further use of the boy.”

Clearer even than the surprise, he felt his father’s anguish, and it startled him.

He had only a moment to be startled before the lightning struck, and then there was no thought, only burning, and a scream somewhere in the distance that went on and on and never stopped.

_Father_

_Help_

_Fa…_

_Me help me…_

_Please_

_Help_

_Father_

He remembered, in those strange, painless moments when the agony grew too great and his mind drifted from his body. He remembered, in rich, vivid clarity, as if _this_ was a dream and the memory present. Like a stone skipping on water he traveled his childhood, youth. Skimming over the bright days. Plunging into the points of darkness.

_Uncle Owen where’s my father_

_Dead—and good riddance_

_Owen, please…Luke, child, he went to be with your mother a long time ago, before you were born_

_Ben, did you know my father_

_Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father_

_No…_ I _am your father_

_Join me and together we will rule the galaxy as father and son_

Vader never knew how close he came to succeeding, though not for the power’s sake—it was never about power for Luke

 _As father and son_ the temptation still sang to him, every hour and every minute in-between

 _Join me_ but he fought it, every second, because he was afraid of himself and what he could become and he wandered, and fought and feared

 _I’ll never join you!_ more to convince himself than anyone

_Never…_

The pain crystallized, began to form a glassy arch over his mind. Reflexively, he squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn’t looked in a mirror since that day on Dagobah.

 _Don’t be afraid, Luke_ a gentle voice echoed. _There’s nothing to fear._

And because he had learned a few things, he knew enough to be stupid, to trust, to open his eyes.

He looked into the mirror and saw…

Himself.

Luke Skywalker.

Not a monster; not a disaster waiting to emerge. Not an avatar of light, either. Just a man. A man with potential for great good and also great evil, but who was defined by neither. Not a man to run from.

A man to simply be.

“Why?” he asked. “Why so different from the last time?”

The voice laughed quietly—his own mind or the Force, he could not tell. _Nothing has changed. What you see now, you saw in the cave._

“Could it have been avoided, then? All the pain I caused Leia, all the wandering?”

_Could? Would? Should? Luke, what is and what might have been are on vastly different planes. You are here. It is now. Your wandering has ripened you to see; seeing, you are ready to find what you have sought your whole life._

And with a flare of white light, the mirror shattered and fell, and molten shards of memory fused to present, and a black-gloved hand reached down through the years and grasped his own.

Luke’s eyes fluttered open.

“ _Father,_ ” he breathed, and smiled.


End file.
